them, throughout all the neighborhood.  It is difficult at this day for those not familiar with the atrocities of the institution of slavery to believe that such scenes could ever have been witnessed in this or any other civilized land, as a result simply of a human being’s effort to reach a portion of the country, where the freedom of which it was said to be the home, could be enjoyed without molestation.  Yet such was the horrible truth in not one case alone, but in many, as I know only too well.

* * * * *

Runaway slave caught and whipped.

One day while I was waiting at dinner, some of the children from the slave quarters came running into the house, and said to old Master Jack:  “Uncle John is going away—­he is down to the creek.”  He had been put in the carpenter shop, fastened in the stocks, but by some means he had gotten the stocks off his feet, and got loose.  All in the house immediately got up and ran out.  Old master told me to run and catch the runaway.  I did not like to do it, but had to obey.  Old master and I ran in pursuit, and soon overtook him.  He could not run, as the stocks were still on his arms and neck.  We brought him back, and he was “staked out”—­that is, four stakes were driven into the ground, the arms tied to two and the legs to the other two.  He was then paddled with the whipping paddle upon the bottom of his feet, by old Master Jack, until blood blisters arose, when he took his knife and opened them.  I was then sent for salt and water, and the bruises of the suffering chattel were washed as usual in the stinging brine.

* * * * *

A home guard accidentally shoots himself.

After the capture of Memphis by the Union forces, the soldiers were in the habit of making raids into the surrounding country.  These were a source of alarm and anxiety among the people, and they were constantly on the watch to defend their property and themselves, as best they could.  One day Dr. Charles Dandridge went over to one of our neighbors, Mr. Bobor’s, to practice shooting, and to see if he had heard anything new about the war.  It was the custom of the home-guards to meet weekly, and practice with their fire-arms, in order to be the better prepared, as they pretended, for any sudden incursion of the now dreaded Yankee.  Mr. Bobor had gotten a Yankee pistol from some friend, who was in the army, and Dr. Charles wanted to see and try it.  It was shown him, and its workings explained.  He took it and began shooting, and in showing the other men how quickly he could shoot a Yankee, and mount his horse, he accidentally shot himself under the short rib near his heart, and fell to the ground.  All the men came running to him, picked him up and carried him into the house, immediately sending word to Mrs. Dandridge and Master Jack McGee, his father-in-law.  The boys came hurrying in,